The use by consumers of various internet resources and services for researching products prior to purchase is now commonplace.
In the distant past, product research often involved time and effort consuming methodologies, often resulting in generic or peripheral product literature, often prepared by biased commercial and organizational entities. Today, large libraries of product information obtained from several sources are easily accessible online. For example, as is well known, virtually all ecommerce websites currently operated by major commercial retailers enable costumers to search for specific products, obtain product specifications, and browse through (as well as contribute to) product appraisals, ratings, and reviews.
Retailers understand that providing customers with detailed information about the products they carry tends to promote retail activity. Fueled also by increased competition, retailers are now quite keen to continue the development, incorporation, support, and use of innovative product information services in their customer-facing retail platforms.
In considering and evaluating common practices found in current ecommerce websites, it is proposed that, with respect to product ratings and reviews, customers are likely to place a higher value on the ratings and reviews of individuals that are personally known, rather than those of strangers. However, in all the ecommerce websites considered, the ratings and reviews are invariably non-personal, being largely sourced from a broad population of unconnected users.
Furthermore, while detailed product information is easily available from ecommerce websites—as is the case with ratings and reviews—the product information tends again to be non-personal, being formatted statically for broadcast to a wide audience. There is little, if any ability, to tailor and personalize the product information retrieved from the ecommerce site.
In light of the above, there is clearly a considerable need for delivering personalized, timely, and pertinent product information to retail customers. Provided the personalized information is delivered in a manner that engages broad customer interest and use, the development and control of such online resource by an individual retailer can provide substantial service differentiation, as well as promote goodwill, customer loyalty, and retail sales activity.